Trump vows to send up to 15,000 troops to border

Courtesy : Nationalist web team04/11/2018 09:03

President to address 11 rallies in nine States in six days

U.S. President Donald Trump began his final stretch of campaigning for the November 6 midterms with a six-day, 11-rally blitz across nine states, ramping up his messaging on key election issues such as immigration, border, healthcare and the economy.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims about the intentions and composition of the migrant caravan of some 3,500 people making its way across Mexico to the U.S. border in order to fire up his base to make the point that the country is safest in Republican hands. “… We’ll go up to anywhere between 10 (thousand) and 15,000 military personnel on top of border patrol, ICE and everybody else on the border,” he said on Wednesday before heading to Florida for a rally.

The administration is already sending 5,200 active duty troops to the southwest U.S. border this week. By way of comparison, the U.S. has approximately 14,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan.

In southwest Florida on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump once again touched on key themes — security, the border, jobs — and blamed what he called the “farleft” media for using “tragedy [a reference to the Pittsburgh shootings where 11 died in a Synagogue attack on Saturday] to sow anger and division”.

Mr. Trump also said that during the rally that there were some “good people”in the media. He campaigned in Florida where there are two high profile races — the Senate race with Governor Rick Scott who is now running forthe U.S. Senate against incumbent and Democrat Bill Nelson, and the Governor race in which former member of U.S. House of Representative Ron De Santis is running for Governor of Florida against Andrew Gillam, the African American Mayor of Tallahassee. Mr. Trump will also travel to Montana, Indiana, Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee and Georgia — all states that he won in 2016 in the run up to Tuesday. Although Mr. Trump is not on the ballot, he doesn’t seem to be taking any chances

“I’m not on the ticket, but I am on the ticket, because this is also a referendum about me... pretend I’m on the ballot,” he said at a rally in Mississippi last month.

Early voting Both sides are keen to get their supporters out to vote early, at least 37 States and the District of Columbia have some form of early voting before November 6. A third of all votes were cast early in 2016 and at least 26 million people have voted early this year as per Michael McDonald, a University of Florida election expert, a number that is in the ballpark of other estimates such as those compiled by CNN and their data partner Catalist.

Early votes cast in 18 States have already surpassed their total votes cast in the 2014 midterms , according to Mr. McDonald. “Everybody voted already?... No kidding! Then what am I doing here tonight?“Mr. Trump said, after asking for a show of hands of those who had voted early. Voter turnout is a crucial factor in determining outcomes for both parties, but Democrats are especially at risk as they experienced a relatively low voter turnout in 2014, enabling Republicans to win the Senate.

Those who did not vote in the 2014 midterms prefer Democrats by 55 % (Republicans at 42%), while those who did vote in 2014 are almost evenly split between the two parties, according to a report.